Andrew has begun a series on How to grow a church. This is an important issue. GENEVA stresses as one of its goals to plant grounded and growing churches, for, as Andrew says, if a church doesn't grow, then church planting just multiplies plateaued and frustrated churches that are unable to themselves plant.
A thing I have heard Phillip Jensen say multiple times is that 'it's easy to grow a church, what's hard is growing disciples' or something similar. I have found this quite discouraging, actually, because I find it quite hard to grow a church.
The statement is misleading, because any sphere of expertise is difficult, whether disciple-making, church growth sociology or nuclear physics.
But Phillip's point, as Andrew also stresses in his post, is that we must be interested in the growth that the Lord gives, not mere numberical increase.
How to grow a church
